


gambled rings

by iihappydaysii



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Drunk Jamie, F/M, Gen, M/M, Protective Jamie, dumb ass jamie, not between jamie and john, or jamie and claire, threats of non con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23207299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iihappydaysii/pseuds/iihappydaysii
Summary: At Jocasta's wedding, Jamie and Claire get into a fight when Jamie gambles with Frank's wedding ring. She kicks him out of their room, so he gets drunk and wanders off to John's bedroom, where he encounters something he really didn't need to see.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey, Lord John Grey/Original Character(s), Unrequited - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 181





	gambled rings

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't read this book yet. i'm just basing things off random conversations i've had and the promos for next week.

He’d thought for a moment Claire was going to kill him, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he’d have defended himself. When she’d told him, she couldn’t stand to see him right now. He’d found the liquor left over from the wedding and drank… well, he drank all of it.

His whole body ached with exhaustion and rum, far too much rum, and he found himself, leaning his forehead against the door of John Grey’s room here at River Run.

“John, John. Can ye come to the door, man?” Jamie could have been whispering. He could’ve been shouting. No way to know. “Claire won’t talk to me and… “his words slurred and he tugged the door handle. _Nothing._ A fuzzy thought in the back of his mind, he stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled a piece of wire out of his pocket. He jammed it into the lock and it popped open. _I dinna ken I kent how to do that._ He pushed the door open. “Did ye no hear me knock?”

“Jamie!” Grey squealed. “Jesus Christ.”

The sight was so unexpected, and Jamie so drunk, the scene before him didn’t immediately register, but when it did, it hit like a gut punch.

“Oh God!” Jamie shouted, throwing his arms up over his eyes too late. Far too late. So much skin and large muscles and a big tangle of male limbs.

“Why didn’t you knock?” Grey’s voice pierced through his aching head like a dagger.

“I did.”

“Not to interrupt,” said the man that had been buggering John. _Mary, Mother of Christ, John had been the one getting buggered._ “But you most definitely did not knock.”

Jamie still had both his big arms up over his face. 

“Is he going to be a… problem?” the unknown man said. 

“No. I don’t think so,” Grey said, warily. “Jamie?” There was tentative fear in his voice. Jamie figured he could be a problem for Grey. But he’d seen nothing here, he didn’t already know was happening. 

“I’m no bloody telling anyone. I’d have to relive it in my mind to do that and I dinna plan to think on it ever again.”

“Lovely.” Nathaniel gave him a stretched-out smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you. If you don’t mind. I have some business I’d like to finish.”

_Aye, I’ll bet ye do._ Jamie dropped his arms away and looked at Grey for the first time since he’d seen him spread out like a woman. He was now under the bedclothes, but still free of his shirts. 

“Nathaniel,” Grey said. “I think the moment has been lost.”

Nathaniel gave a hoarse snort, then threw back the bedclothes. “If the Scot wants to watch, I don’t mind performing for an audience.”

“Stop it.” Grey grabbed at the blankets to cover himself again. “We’re done.”

Nathaniel was pulling him to the edge of the bed by his ankles. “Come on, you weren’t complaining a moment ago.”

A cannonball rage blasted through Jamie and before he knew what he was doing, his hand was around that bastard’s neck and he had that slimy thing pinned to the wallpaper with one hand.

“He told ye to stop.”

“Sorry. Didn’t know you had some sort of claim on him.”

Jamie squeezed harder, the insinuation— _some kind of claim—_ made him even angrier. Nathaniel’s face was turning blue and he tried to sputter out some more words, but he couldn’t.

“This man is my friend and if ye so much look in his direction again, I’ll finish what I started here and break yer sorry neck, ye hear me?”

He slammed Nathaniel’s head hard against the wall, then let him go. The man stumbled forward, gasping for air, hands near his throat. Pulling up his breeches, he scrambled from the room like the coward he was.

“Jamie,” Grey said, pulling on his own breeches. “For the love of God, why are you here?” He picked up his shirt from the floor and put it back on. 

“It’s a good thing I was. Since ye decided to mince around my aunt’s house wi’ a pervert who doesna ken how to take no for an answer.”

“And I thank you for that, Jamie, but it doesn’t answer my question.”

Jamie frowned. “Claire… kicked me out of our rooms.”

“Why? What did you do?” 

“How do ye ken it was me who did it?”

Grey just gave him a look, and Jamie didn’t know how to argue with it.

“I may have tried to gamble her wedding ring,” Jamie admitted.

His mouth dropped open. “You did what? For what purpose?”

“Not _our_ wedding ring. The ring from her other marriage.”

“You realize that nearly makes it worse.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“You’re asking me to explain women? I’m sure the irony of that is not lost on you.”

Jamie just frowned at Grey. If anyone in the world knew how to get directly under his skin it was Lord John Grey. 

Then, Grey sighed and looked at Jamie with that soft look that had always made a shiver move under his skin. “When you love someone, you don’t just get to wish away the parts of them you don’t like or the parts of their history that you don’t like.”

He guessed Grey knew about that. He could not wish away Jamie’s love for Claire or the fact that he did not love Grey the way the man loved him.

“I wasna trying to wish it away. I kent I would win the bet, and I did.”

“Why even make the bet? Surely, you have better things you could do than gamble with the men here.”

“We dinna all have other activities wi’ men to occupy ourselves, John.”

“That’s far from what I meant and you know it.”

“He was… making advances on her.”

Grey titled his head. “Who?”

“Forbes.”

Grey snorted. “And you think he’s a threat to what you have with, Claire?”

“That mouse of a man? Of course not. It isna that. It’s… he kens she’s married to me and he still…” Jamie huffed through his nose like a dragon. “I canna abide that sort of disrespect.”

Grey’s eyes narrowed in that thoughtful way that made him look like he had a nose in a book, even when he didn’t “So you almost lost your wife’s wedding ring from her dead husband who took care of her and your daughter for twenty years, not for her sake, but for your own… pride? Well, I can’t imagine why she would be mad about that.” 

Jamie sat down on the edge of the bed. “I willna ever understand women…” He gave Grey a wicked grin and said something he didn’t mean to say, damn the alcohol in his veins. "Maybe there is something to benefit from yer inclinations.”

John laughed and sat down on the bed as well, but at the foot instead. “I wish I could report that it is easier with men, but it is not. Imagine having to put up with yourself.” 

“Oh God, ye and Claire must be saints.” Jamie leaned back on the bed. “I am verra drunk, major.”

“I can see that.”

“I dinna think she’s letting me back in the bedroom tonight. She told me to go out and sleep with the pigs.” 

John lips twitched into a barely-there smile. “I’ll try not to take offense that you came here.”

Jamie yawned. “Ye think she’ll forgive me?”

Grey looked down to his hands in his lap and whispered. “I reckon she will. I always do.”

“And we’ve never even…” Jamie attempted to make a rude gesture with hands. 

“Jesus, you really are pissed.”

Jamie felt a tug between his brows as he watched Grey, unable to stop the memory of seeing him that way from returning to the forefront of his mind. So much never thinking on it again.

“I dinna ken ye did it like that.” The words sort of fell out of his mouth on the waterfall of rum he’d had

Grey’s cheeks flushed red. “Like what?”

“I assumed ye were… as the man?”

Grey choked on the air. “We’re men either way, that’s kind of the point. Erm, but yes I… normally do the giving rather than the… receiving. But this man, wasn’t having it the other way around and I… well, the opportunity doesn’t always present itself one way or another.”

Jamie pondered that momentarily. He never gave much thought to why he assumed the position John would take in his couplings. Why he assumed that’s what the man imagined when he imagined Jamie. He didn’t think about that at all anymore. Not when he was sober at least. But after the drink and what he’d just seen, it was on his mind again. That if Jamie were ever willing, he could have John, all the pieces of him, inside and out. 

“I can stay here wi’ ye tonight?” Jamie asked.

“Yes.” John smiled over at him. “But tomorrow morning, you’ re going to go make up with your wife. Beg her forgiveness if you have to.”

“Aye, sir. I willna argue wi’ ye.”


End file.
